Naturalism is the belief that everything is an extrapolation from an eternally existant physical thing or from absolutely nothing. This simple physical thing had innate forces that led it to become something else. As it became something else, it had specific and constant universal laws that governed its advancement. These laws always existed too while this thing was evolving for no apparent reason. Eventually everything evolved into a stew just right for life. Pop! The first self-replicating things appeared from non-living things. Then, by chance, everything that self-replicated somehow harnessed the power of the sun to defy the second law of thermodynamics to become more genetically complex living things. Life tended to become more and more complex and filled with efficient new information from harmful mutations as time went on. Eventually this non-intelligent process produced intelligent things from non-intelligent things. Throw in a few billion years later and it's obvious that consciousness, morality, the laws of nature, the human brain, and intelligent life itself arose this way. God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

At 8/2/2014 4:22:55 AM, Benshapiro wrote:Naturalism is the belief that everything is an extrapolation from an eternally existant physical thing or from absolutely nothing. This simple physical thing had innate forces that led it to become something else. As it became something else, it had specific and constant universal laws that governed its advancement. These laws always existed too while this thing was evolving for no apparent reason. Eventually everything evolved into a stew just right for life. Pop! The first self-replicating things appeared from non-living things. Then, by chance, everything that self-replicated somehow harnessed the power of the sun to defy the second law of thermodynamics to become more genetically complex living things. Life tended to become more and more complex and filled with efficient new information from harmful mutations as time went on. Eventually this non-intelligent process produced intelligent things from non-intelligent things. Throw in a few billion years later and it's obvious that consciousness, morality, the laws of nature, the human brain, and intelligent life itself arose this way. God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

Intelligence can't be seen either yet it transformed apes into beings that can duplicate the power of the sun. Atheists forget the simple rule for invisible forces: you tell their existence indirectly through the trail of changes they make that otherwise would not occur. You tell the existence of a Great Spirit by its trail of witnesses in its wake who have been affected by the Great Spirit. They produce artifacts bearing that witnessing and the artifacts would never occur without the Great Spirit influencing the witnesses.

It is so silly for atheists to want to make God lie down on the laboratory table for measurements. It's the by-product of materialistic thinking so be oblivious to spiritual phenomena.

At 8/2/2014 4:22:55 AM, Benshapiro wrote:Naturalism is the belief that everything is an extrapolation from an eternally existant physical thing or from absolutely nothing. This simple physical thing had innate forces that led it to become something else. As it became something else, it had specific and constant universal laws that governed its advancement. These laws always existed too while this thing was evolving for no apparent reason. Eventually everything evolved into a stew just right for life. Pop! The first self-replicating things appeared from non-living things. Then, by chance, everything that self-replicated somehow harnessed the power of the sun to defy the second law of thermodynamics to become more genetically complex living things. Life tended to become more and more complex and filled with efficient new information from harmful mutations as time went on. Eventually this non-intelligent process produced intelligent things from non-intelligent things. Throw in a few billion years later and it's obvious that consciousness, morality, the laws of nature, the human brain, and intelligent life itself arose this way. God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

Nothing you talked about describes naturalism. Rather than to sit here and give an entire paragraph trying to explain what naturalism is, why not just look in a dictionary?

Naturalism is the belief that the natural world is all there is. Everything else you threw in there are just things you are trying to bootstrap to the definition.

Why are definitions such a problem for theists? When you have to add concepts to a definition in order to have something to argue against that should tell you something.

At 8/2/2014 6:09:12 PM, celestialtorahteacher wrote:God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

Intelligence can't be seen either yet it transformed apes into beings that can duplicate the power of the sun. Atheists forget the simple rule for invisible forces: you tell their existence indirectly through the trail of changes they make that otherwise would not occur.

Uhg. No. You tell the existence of invisible forces by testing them. Once you establish that the force exists you begin a process of tests aimed at explaining the force, which if successful becomes a theory.

Intelligence can't be seen either yet it transformed apes into beings that can duplicate the power of the sun.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'seen', but it can certainly be measured. Not a very apt comparison.

Atheists forget the simple rule for invisible forces: you tell their existence indirectly through the trail of changes they make that otherwise would not occur. You tell the existence of a Great Spirit by its trail of witnesses in its wake who have been affected by the Great Spirit.

Are you saying that the 'Great Spirit' is like gravity? Again, there are laws governing gravity and we can measure its effects. Science has yet to discover any laws relating to a 'Great Spirit' or observe any evidence of the 'trail' it leaves. That's a failed comparison too.

They produce artifacts bearing that witnessing and the artifacts would never occur without the Great Spirit influencing the witnesses.

That's just a bare assertion.

It is so silly for atheists to want to make God lie down on the laboratory table for measurements.

Why? According to the analogies you made above, detection should be a relatively simple matter.

It's the by-product of materialistic thinking so be oblivious to spiritual phenomena.

We are all oblivious to what doesn't exist.

Fatihah: It's like your mother making spaghetti and after you taste it and don't like it, you say "well my mom must not exist". Not because their is no logical evidence but because she doesn't do what you want.

At 8/2/2014 4:22:55 AM, Benshapiro wrote:Naturalism is the belief that everything is an extrapolation from an eternally existant physical thing or from absolutely nothing. This simple physical thing had innate forces that led it to become something else. As it became something else, it had specific and constant universal laws that governed its advancement. These laws always existed too while this thing was evolving for no apparent reason. Eventually everything evolved into a stew just right for life. Pop! The first self-replicating things appeared from non-living things. Then, by chance, everything that self-replicated somehow harnessed the power of the sun to defy the second law of thermodynamics to become more genetically complex living things. Life tended to become more and more complex and filled with efficient new information from harmful mutations as time went on. Eventually this non-intelligent process produced intelligent things from non-intelligent things. Throw in a few billion years later and it's obvious that consciousness, morality, the laws of nature, the human brain, and intelligent life itself arose this way. God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

Nothing you talked about describes naturalism. Rather than to sit here and give an entire paragraph trying to explain what naturalism is, why not just look in a dictionary?

Naturalism is the belief that the natural world is all there is. Everything else you threw in there are just things you are trying to bootstrap to the definition.

Probably because naturalism is NOTORIOUSLY hard to define in philosophical circles. You can say it means "the belief that the natural world is all there is" but then you come across the problem of figuring out what exactly counts as natural entities.

"The debate about naturalism remains so very much alive and so complex. Much of it concerns just how narrowly or broadly to construe naturalism and how open it should be to the form and content of what is accepted as belonging to science. What if our best understanding of the sciences indicates that reductionism is at best "local," confined to certain areas, and there is no single, fundamental level of description in which all scientific truths can be expressed? And what if the interpretation of the "physical" is expanded to include supervenient properties, including mental properties, and moral values? Would that be a defeat for naturalism, or only for certain versions of it? Or, suppose a theorist claimed that philosophy could dispense with a priori theorizing or with attempts to arrive at highly general theories altogether (the theory of knowledge, the theory of morality, the theory of meaning, etc.), say, in the manner of the later Wittgenstein? Would that rejection of "first philosophy" and the search for foundations or essences constitute a kind of naturalism? We can imagine a defender of that approach answering in the affirmative, and other self-avowed naturalists finding that inappropriate and misleading. In their view naturalism requires certain quite specific commitments about what there is and how it can be known or explained.

This does not mean that the debate about naturalism is merely or mainly verbal. There are significant, substantive issues involved. Some of them concern just how naturalism is to be interpreted, and some of them concern the truth of naturalism in one or another area. These are not matters of stipulation, but difficult, complex issues. In trying to resolve them there is considerable traffic back and forth between philosophical theorizing and empirical science. One could, for example, be a naturalist about moral value, but not a "global" naturalist, a naturalist about all things. Moral theorizing has some important relations with epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind, but one need not tackle all of those issues and relations at once in order to assess the claims of naturalism in one area. Or, at least that appears to be a workable approach. At the same time, part of the appeal of naturalism is its potentially global scope. It has the apparent merit of providing a single, or at least integrated overall account of what there is, and what it is like, and how it works"including the actions, experiences, and thoughts of rational animals."

" The term "naturalism" has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed "naturalists" from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing "supernatural", and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the "human spirit" (Krikorian 1944, Kim 2003).

So understood, "naturalism" is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism as just characterized"that is, they would both reject "supernatural" entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the "human spirit".

Even so, this entry will not aim to pin down any more informative definition of "naturalism". It would be fruitless to try to adjudicate some official way of understanding the term. Different contemporary philosophers interpret "naturalism" differently. This disagreement about usage is no accident. For better or worse, "naturalism" is widely viewed as a positive term in philosophical circles"few active philosophers nowadays are happy to announce themselves as "non-naturalists".[1] This inevitably leads to a divergence in understanding the requirements of "naturalism". Those philosophers with relatively weak naturalist commitments are inclined to understand "naturalism" in a unrestrictive way, in order not to disqualify themselves as "naturalists", while those who uphold stronger naturalist doctrines are happy to set the bar for "naturalism" higher.[2]"

Why are definitions such a problem for theists? When you have to add concepts to a definition in order to have something to argue against that should tell you something.

Why is nuance such a problem for you? There's a reason why people are understandably a bit perplexed on how to characterize naturalism is when you have people like John Searle, David Chalmers, and Thomas Nagel on one side, and Patrica and Paul Churchland on the other side flying the banner of naturalism even though they have radically different ontologies and epistemologies.

At 8/2/2014 6:09:12 PM, celestialtorahteacher wrote:God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

Intelligence can't be seen either yet it transformed apes into beings that can duplicate the power of the sun. Atheists forget the simple rule for invisible forces: you tell their existence indirectly through the trail of changes they make that otherwise would not occur.

Uhg. No. You tell the existence of invisible forces by testing them. Once you establish that the force exists you begin a process of tests aimed at explaining the force, which if successful becomes a theory.

There you go again, trying to make God obey your orders. Here, God, sit here while we do some measurements to see how tall you are and how much electrical energy you're producing...cheeses on a cracker, you atheists are out to lunch in the rationality department when it comes to dealing with Spirit and spiritual phenomena. You just don't ever get it, that without spiritual EXPERIENCE, real spiritual experience and not church group mind mass hysteria, you know nothing about God and the Spirit of Christ except what you read from others, so it's all hearsay, second-hand information you're using to make your judgment calls on. Not very wise to judge a phenomena that you cannot in any way personally describe.

But I know atheists aren't here because they want to learn but to parade their egos trying to "win" against theists as if those without any experience in a field of knowledge are at all qualified to judge those who have theistic experiences.

At 8/2/2014 4:22:55 AM, Benshapiro wrote:Naturalism is the belief that everything is an extrapolation from an eternally existant physical thing or from absolutely nothing. This simple physical thing had innate forces that led it to become something else. As it became something else, it had specific and constant universal laws that governed its advancement. These laws always existed too while this thing was evolving for no apparent reason. Eventually everything evolved into a stew just right for life. Pop! The first self-replicating things appeared from non-living things. Then, by chance, everything that self-replicated somehow harnessed the power of the sun to defy the second law of thermodynamics to become more genetically complex living things. Life tended to become more and more complex and filled with efficient new information from harmful mutations as time went on. Eventually this non-intelligent process produced intelligent things from non-intelligent things. Throw in a few billion years later and it's obvious that consciousness, morality, the laws of nature, the human brain, and intelligent life itself arose this way. God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

Nothing you talked about describes naturalism. Rather than to sit here and give an entire paragraph trying to explain what naturalism is, why not just look in a dictionary?

Naturalism is the belief that the natural world is all there is. Everything else you threw in there are just things you are trying to bootstrap to the definition.

Probably because naturalism is NOTORIOUSLY hard to define in philosophical circles. You can say it means "the belief that the natural world is all there is" but then you come across the problem of figuring out what exactly counts as natural entities.

It doesn't matter if there are words used in the definition that need further explaining and understanding. That doesn't change the essence of the definition, and that is not in question. The point raised to the OP was the fact that he was adding concepts to naturalism that are not part of the definition, then arguing against them as if he was arguing against naturalism. He wasn't. He was arguing against the big bang, abiogenesis, evolution etc...

Why are definitions such a problem for theists? When you have to add concepts to a definition in order to have something to argue against that should tell you something.

Why is nuance such a problem for you? There's a reason why people are understandably a bit perplexed on how to characterize naturalism is when you have people like John Searle, David Chalmers, and Thomas Nagel on one side, and Patrica and Paul Churchland on the other side flying the banner of naturalism even though they have radically different ontologies and epistemologies.

Yes, and none of them are raising the OP's concerns in that debate. They actually understand how to read definitions.

At 8/2/2014 7:08:42 PM, Double_R wrote:Uhg. No. You tell the existence of invisible forces by testing them. Once you establish that the force exists you begin a process of tests aimed at explaining the force, which if successful becomes a theory.

There you go again, trying to make God obey your orders. Here, God, sit here while we do some measurements to see how tall you are and how much electrical energy you're producing...cheeses on a cracker, you atheists are out to lunch in the rationality department when it comes to dealing with Spirit and spiritual phenomena.

You have to believe God exists before you attempt to give him orders. You have to provide valid reasons for believing in him before accepting it if you would like your belief to be considered rational.

You are doing it a$$ backwards then trying to accuse me of irrationality. Reason comes first. We are human beings. The way we determine the existence of anything through reason is to demonstrate such existence first. Demonstrations requires testing. After testing leads you to a conclusion, you accept the conclusion. After you accept the conclusion, you act on that acceptance.

This is not that complicated.

You just don't ever get it, that without spiritual EXPERIENCE, real spiritual experience and not church group mind mass hysteria, you know nothing about God and the Spirit of Christ except what you read from others, so it's all hearsay, second-hand information you're using to make your judgment calls on. Not very wise to judge a phenomena that you cannot in any way personally describe.

If experience is required to understand God then why do you sit here and argue with people on debate dot org? Your personal experiences are useless to me and everyone else. And until I gain such experiences, argument and reason is all I and anyone else has to determine what is real. So do you actually have an argument, or is the equivalent of "I was there" the best you can do?

But I know atheists aren't here because they want to learn but to parade their egos trying to "win" against theists as if those without any experience in a field of knowledge are at all qualified to judge those who have theistic experiences.

No we (at least some if not most of us) are here because philosophical argument is enlightening, even when it is with someone who has nothing else to say other than "God is real because I feel him".

At 8/2/2014 4:22:55 AM, Benshapiro wrote:Naturalism is the belief that everything is an extrapolation from an eternally existant physical thing or from absolutely nothing. This simple physical thing had innate forces that led it to become something else. As it became something else, it had specific and constant universal laws that governed its advancement. These laws always existed too while this thing was evolving for no apparent reason. Eventually everything evolved into a stew just right for life. Pop! The first self-replicating things appeared from non-living things. Then, by chance, everything that self-replicated somehow harnessed the power of the sun to defy the second law of thermodynamics to become more genetically complex living things. Life tended to become more and more complex and filled with efficient new information from harmful mutations as time went on. Eventually this non-intelligent process produced intelligent things from non-intelligent things. Throw in a few billion years later and it's obvious that consciousness, morality, the laws of nature, the human brain, and intelligent life itself arose this way. God can't be seen and has no evidence. Thus, naturalism doesn't need God.

No the universe is their god, the provider of all that there is. And their interpretations are true according to their own beliefs. It"s what they honor and respect as the most powerful thing, but yet it is the consensuses that their provider has a beginning. Therefore either one can worship themselves and their own lives as the most valuable thing and the fulfillment of what they want, or the universe as the most valuable thing that they see provides for the afore mentioned. And before that according to them there was nothing. Therefore nothing else to seek out or believe in.

"If experience is required to understand God then why do you sit here and argue with people on debate dot org? Your personal experiences are useless to me and everyone else."

Hey, some of us are here working, fella. I am a religious visionary and prophesy bearer in the old time Jewish tradition and one of things we do is brand the useless junk bad ideas in past religious beliefs and practices to get rid of them. To pull up the tares, the terrors, out of the Garden so the good nutritious crops can be planted. So I am here to remove bad religious ideas including those of the religion of atheism. After that, my job here is to bring new information to everyone about the Celestial Torah astro-theological system embedded within Abrahamic religious texts as well as Gnostic Gospels and in the Quran. You don't have any of this information to give yet you dare make claims you do? That's just pure bullshite. Own up to lack of spiritual knowledge for once and stop fooling yourself that you know anything at all about spiritual phenomena.